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securing windows - is Simple & free
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17-08-2005 8:54pm#1How to secure windows
*Do Use*
Mozilla Firefox - Free
AVG Anti Virus - Free
Zone Alarm - Free
Spybot Search& Destroy - Free
Ad Aware - Free
History Kill - $40us (And well worth it!)
*Do Not use*
Internet Explorer
Norton Anti Virus/Firewall
McAfee Anti Virus/Firewall
windows Firewall
microsoft Anti Spy
windows SP2
Windows updates
Follow above instruction and enjoy happy computing (3 years+ now and counting for myself
)
First list - *Do Use* - the programs work
Second List - *Do Not Use* Because they do not work,
Simple really - and just think - majority of the second list you pay for - I wonder why?
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*Do Not use*
Internet Explorer
Norton Anti Virus/Firewall
McAfee Anti Virus/Firewall
windows Firewall
microsoft Anti Spy
windows SP2
Windows updates
Can't agree with the last 2, because DEP (Data Execution Protection) in my view was one of the best things about SP2.
Of course, its really only effective with processors that support NX-flag like AMD64 and IA-32e.
But it is in my opinion, the beginning of the end for buffer overflows.
The automatic updates may be annoying, but they are there for the simple fact that alot of users, don't do it manually, and then become victims of malware.
Its also convenient for administrators that have to dedicate time to patching systems.
Firewall, another great addition.
It is easier to modify windows firewall settings using code than say Zone Alarm, but a little investigation could change all that.
I use Internet Explorer, but have custom security settings, for example, turning off active-x
And i don't worry about buffer overflows, because DEP takes care of that 0 -
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em no - just learn to switch of all the crap that microjerk leave switched on and no need for updates. I never use updates. I use the above package and have done as I said for over 3 years.
I found an interesting blog entry by windows supremo Mark Russinovich, whom i'm sure most of you would know from sysinternals.com titled Running Windows with No Services
It shows a way to disable most of what i thought were critical components of windows, for "least basic functionality"
Your method probably works out well for yourself, but its not good advice for everyone, I don't think.Learn how to increase your buffer sizing and increase your page filing sizes. Amongst a few other things...
You are having a laugh, aren't you? 0 -
Average Joe wrote:
You are having a laugh, aren't you?
So ok maybe thats a wee bit advanced for most but switching of most of the stuff that is enabled by microsoft by default is a must. As soon as I get a new clients computer in for resetting I do this to. 99% of them never notice the difference and the service will just re-activate if requested anyway.
Very rarely do I get a clients computer back. Only times I do is if they fail to update the above solutions regularly. I allways remove Norton or McAfee solutions as they are an unadulterated set of resource hogging garbage. McAfee fairs slightly better than Norton in that it does work but at what cost? Resources? Which means your new super fast computer runs like a steam train.
Norton I personally class as 'Malware' under a very strict policy I have on installed software.
If I install software to my machine then I reserve the right to remove that software at anytime with no ill effect to the operating system. The system should operate as normal as it did prior to the installation of that software. I also do not want to have to use speciallist software to be able to remove an installed piece of software so as to maintain system integrity.
Unless I use that specialist software to remove Norton safely and correctly and just remove Norton then the cultimation is an increasing system instability untill the system gives up all together and requires re-install.
Norton fails that strict protocol which marks it as Malware in my classification.
Even putting the above 'Do Use' list onto a comp and maintaining a principal of automatic updates etc and with sp2 installed (I have this kind of set up running on a spare testing machine btw) It has not been compromised.
Norton lasted 30 days on that machine when I tested the 2005 edition not long back. Log showed that it had been infected with trojans after about 4-5 days. coolwebsearch amongst other nasties was also there. This would have been the basic configuration used by most home users.
Whats more that solution costs money where as the solution I use does not unless you get history kill which I fully recomend to anyone. Cleans out all the hidden windows storage areas including *.* files (Fragmented data store).
I have yet to find any computer running with Norton or McAfee that is not compropmised in some way. Any computer without a software firewall or anti spyware software and running Norton will most likely have trojans. This has been the bane of Norton av since it's inception way back in 96? 97? It never has stopped them and probably never will.
ok I was taking the mick a little with the updates but sp2 didn't solve the problem with ms. Only way they'll ever solve that problem is to unhook the browser from the main system and have it as a stand alone option similar to Firefox or Opera.
The problem goes all the way back to windows 95 when they stole the basis of the system from Apple. Because they had to rush it to market to take Apples 'Glory' they released with the full intention of solving and patching the problems. It didn't work and even with the advent of there supposedly 'Built from the ground up' nt systems it still doesn't work.
Point is windows with minimal knowledge can be secured effectively and for free with the above mentioned free programs (excluding hk of course) where as the stuff you have to pay for? doesn't work.. kinda strange that is if you ask me.
Oh yeah all those free prgrams take up less space and use less resources than either Norton or McAfee as well. Find that kinda funny myself.0 -
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What NONSENSE. AMD64 (and Intel's equivalent) is a 386 with 64bit functions bolted on. The Itanium is a completely new design. Where did you get this from?
Incidentally, the NX-bit thing has nothing to do with being 64bit. Recent Via 386-clones have it, but not the 64bit extensions.
Well..that is funny.
You admit AMD64 is based on intel technology, and then say "NONSENSE"
AMD64 is based on itanium research and development, go read up on it, and you will see i'm right.
The "NX-bit thing"
Read some manuals on Itanium, thats where i base my knowledge.
I haven't been keeping up with PC Mag.. 0 -
Average Joe wrote:Well..that is funny.
You admit AMD64 is based on intel technology, and then say "NONSENSE"
AMD64 is based on itanium research and development, go read up on it, and you will see i'm right.
The "NX-bit thing"
Read some manuals on Itanium, thats where i base my knowledge.
I haven't been keeping up with PC Mag..
I admit that it's a 386 extension (unlike Itanium). As it consists of simple additions to 386, I can't imagine it has anything to do with the new, pseudo-RISC Itanium.
Ditto for NX-bit. It's present in a number of chip designs.
Present credible evidence, please; a quick Google turns up naught.0 -
Capt'n Midnight wrote:The "Microsoft Disk Operating System" or MS-DOS was based on QDOS, the "Quick and Dirty Operating System" written by Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products, for their prototype Intel 8086 based computer.
QDOS was based on Gary Kildall's CP/M, Paterson had bought a CP/M manual and used it as the basis to write his operating system in six weeks, QDOS was different enough from CP/M to be considered legal.
Microsoft bought the rights to QDOS for $50,000, keeping the IBM deal a secret from Seattle Computer Products.
Gates then talked IBM into letting Microsoft retain the rights, to market MS DOS separate from the IBM PC project, Gates proceeded to make a fortune from the licensing of MS-DOS.[/url]
DOS was vastily different to when the first GUI's were first coming out. Earlier versions of windows/or Apple needed a basic DOS service to operate properly. Rank organization were the first to crack the basis on which most modern days Operating Systems are based.
If you watch a film called 'Pirates of Silicon Valley', it clearly shows it was Apple who paid the 50k out for the first major GUI. (Graphical User Interface). Gates managed to get a preview of what Apple were working on and even working samples for research at his own premiss's. Along with his engineers they adapted the system and launched windows 95 knowing that it wasn't ready and hence the now famous (And oft useless) windows update feature.
Apple had broken of all ties with microsoft by this stage and a very lengthy legal battle over rights etc was battled out between the two companys.
Thats how I remember what happened anyway. They did by QDOS but that was way before the advent of how an operating system is now percieved.
microsoft as you say did buy QDOS but it was the GUI that really opened up computers as they are today.
If I remember right the 'START' button caused major arguments. Apple had thought of it first but microsft relwased first. They said they had all ready been working on the system (windows 95) but I find that hard to believe myself.
Technically there 'copyrights' so to speak could be classed as invald as the basis or starting point of all modern day os's come from the Rank/xerox group. Far as I remember it they created the first zero point on a disc or the first basic binarie indexing system. I'm not saying someone would have not got there eventually but we'd be a lot further behind that what we are without them and they just allowed open access for reserach purposes. This was very quickly exploited of course.
Getting back to the original post though and how simple and cheaply it is to secure windows..Average Joe wrote:AFAIK, ZoneAlarm works similar to Windows Firewall.
ZoneAlarm can be controlled through a set of COM interfaces, the same as WF.
If you want, you could access it through a VBScript/JScript file!
WF is referenced by Microsoft for anyone who wishes to manipulate its settings, whereas there is no documentation for ZA.(atleast i don't know of any, not to say someone out there doesn't)
The old trick of bypassing firewalls was to use remote code injection
to a process that was already allowed to make connections.
Like, web browsers, irc clients, icq, msn..aim, take your pick.
Another way is to enumerate all windows, debug the thread associated with it, set a breakpoint or hook on TCP/IP functions like SEND/RECV..etc
Then upon call to either..usually SEND, duplicate the socket handle, and use it to perform whatever connections were neccessary.
Alot of people are commenting on how to bypass DEP, even going as far to write some articles..but they are really disappointing IMHO.
Most of the methods are executed locally..which is pointless.
Why not just get Ring-0 access (same as kernel) and do whatever you want from there?
If you know of a buffer overflow for say..LSASS.EXE which runs under SYSTEM context.
And you exploit it to gain SYSTEM privileges..from just say, GUEST.
They say "we show you how to bypass DEP" and then assume you have READ/WRITE access to the LSASS process!!! HAHA
If you already had the neccessary access, then you wouldn't be trying to exploit a buffer overflow and elevate privileges to SYSTEM, would you?
You'd already have it anyway.
DEP is not a complete solution to buffer overflows on windows, but its a good start.
As more consumers and software vendors move towards supporting 64-bit processors that support the No Execution bit..you will rarely hear of "internet worms" again.
Just an opinion of course, not fact.
Hastalavista maybe?
Whilst yes I do know how to compromise Zone Alarm, I also know how to stop it happening.
Most of the problems home owners have in getting there machines infeced is because most are running in an Administrators account and don't even know it.
An NT based system such as xp just shouldn't be allowed any where near the Internet even if it's hidden in a network. Switch of the Guest account/set a limited user account and your vVB/JS scripts won't run or your gonna have a damn sight more trouble to get them to run.
And you've got to get past Spybots resident shield as well and AVG is very vigilant on VBS scripts anyway. (More than I can say for Norton - I just wiped 8 trojans of that Laptop I was fixing).
A personal recommendation really is to get a Process monitor, such as 'Hacker Eliminater'. None of what you try in your above mentioned will then work. It cost yes and I pay it gladly cause nothing runs on my computer without my say so. A process monitor for those who don't know monitors registry activity amongst other things. Nothing can run without being registered first or registered temporarily. The process monitor stops what ever is trying to register itself as a service and asks if you want to allow it. If it is something you have requested to happen, such as installing a new program yourself or it's a reconised program then generally you would allow it. Other than that you find out all details first and then decide.
It also monitors internet traffic.
So I have a process monitor, AVG, spybot and ZA all monitoring my internet acivity.
I also recommended History Kill. This is a really good prog for cleaning all the garbage out that windows keeps. If somethings important enough to keep, then bookmark it or save it. Don't go cluttering up your caches for months/even years on end! It's only going to cause problems. OK so maybe I was joking about windows updates, some of them are definately required. SP2? Well the jury's still out on that one IMO - My own observations on it upto now was it fixed a few things but not the security side. The anti spy solution needs a lot more work on it to come upto any reasonable standard and is inferior to both spybot and Ad-Aware.
Most home owners which probably equates to about 80% of the market go into a store/buy a computer/switch it on/install this that and other pre-supplied software and merrily get them selves connected to the internet. Most will have some sort of NTsystem if purchased in the last 3-4years/most will put eoither Norton or McAfee on there machines and most if not all will be infected with trojans within the first ten days. (I'm being nice there btw).
Now I'm not saying those programs are 100%. If the end user doesn't update they can be compromised but that is the only reason. Run Norton from an Administrative account, including the new 'Flagship 2005' package and I'll run .vbs scripts all over you. They even admmitted this was the case and had no inclination to fix it!However, a Symantec spokesperson told ZDNet Australia that the flaw was not a threat to users because it only affected systems that are running Windows with administrator rights.
src
Thats great news for like (conservative estimates) 30% of the computers owned by home users where probably 80%+ are running in Administrative rights.
My real point is that most home owners or the majority of end users are just being duped and by engineers who keep re-installing the rubbish. My local shop, I look after his business/home computers. Last year I put the above security package on his machines and hear nothing for about 6-7mnths. I then get a calll asking to come have another look. He explained that a guy had come down from his franchise to update his pricing software and ever since the computer had deteriated.
I had a look over and the pratt of an engineer had uninstalled all of the above and re-installed F***ing Norton AV, no firewall nothing. It took me 2 days to sort the computer out, un-installed Norton (Basic Package), installed an out of date AVG (By about 2-3mnths out of date), it found 14trojans and 12-13 virus's and that was an out of date copy I used!
After updating AVG I caught a few more derivatives.
Myself personally I think a big wake up call should be given to companies who are just not producing the product they say they are. Most use the excuse 'The Internet is so fast moving' blah blah blag blag.. ..
Em Sorry AVG can keep up and do it and they provide there product totally free to home users, wether they run in Administrative mode or not, My question then is 'Why can't you?' After all, Thats what your being paid for... Isn't it?0 -
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rsynnott wrote:Where are you getting this from? Do you have links? It's not right.
MacOS pre-10 was derived from the Apple Lisa OS (Lisa was a commercially impractical GUI based system). Lisa was inspired by (but not derived from) a Xerox PARC project which produced one of the first GUI systems. Apple didn't buy it from ANYONE; they developed it themselves.
Yes because Mac/Apple developed there system specifically for there machine. This is the main reason there system is far superior and stable to windows or Linux. It does make it commercially impractible as you say because of the extra cost involved.Microsoft was one of a number of companies to produce graphical shells for their DOS operating system; the first of these shells was Windows 1, the last was Windows ME. Again, Microsoft didn't buy, borrow or steal these; they produced them themselves.
From windows 1 to 3.1 I'll agree microsoft made there developements in that area. Yes they were trying to develop what was to become windows 95 but were having problems and development had hit major holdups. The Start/Recycle bin were not the only 'Alledged' items dubiously attained by microsoft. They had heard that Apple had made major breakthroughs in there own developements of GUI's and there interoperability by the user. Apple delayed the launch of what was to become there machine that competed against windows 95, which had the added advantage that it didn't matter if it went on IBM or any generic machine.
By the time Apple/Mac had realised what microsoft had done it was to late and the deal between IBM/microsoft was a totally different issue to how microsoft basically exploited the creativity of Apple. This would have been 92-94?
As for srces watch that documentory/film I mentioned and Google 'History of the Internet' for articles on it.
All started in San Antonio, Texas - What is now RackSpace amongst others, well the basis of the Internet was - thats after the Brits invented it in the first place or the protocols that allow it work were at Cambridge University if I remember correctly.
nb: Any chance an Admin/Moderator could split this as it's really off topic to the OP? Finding it an interesting discussion so maybe if the two issues were seperated into there own threads? just a thought is all. 0 -
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rsynnott wrote:Okay, I understand now. You know that that's made up, right? It's not a documentary.
Apart from this being way of topic now but as I remember it most of what was discussed in that film or 'Portrayed' happened. What was more interesting was that microsoft never challenged any accusation made, even though they were openly accused of theft by the then head of Apple/Mac, who himself never claimed that wasn't said by him.
And google has loads of stuff on this era in the history of the internet. The first basis of the internet as we know it now not via the cern/us dod 'Sharing of Information' basis, it's first ever inception but as we know it was started in San Antonio.
oh btw before you get the opinion I'm against windows or I'm one of those 'Anti-Windows' nutters, I'm not. I leave that to Linux users, I love windows, excellent bit of kit - if you don't use half the rubbish they provide with it 0 -
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on the Norton issue, I'd certainly agree!!
worst piece of software in it's class. Really a curse to eradicate off a machine.
I've tried to think why i'd want software that would defeat forensic software used by the US Secret Service, US Customs & the LAPD and i've come to the conclusion that i'm living a sheltered life
course if my machine was being used as a zombie or something i might need it!!0 -
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You remember that billboard in Sandyford Ind. Est ?rsynnott wrote:You claimed that MacOS and Windows 95 (but not previous versions, for some reason) share a codebase, as I remember. Fantasy
Windows 95
Apple 89
Seriously the 68000 processors used different space for code and data so even if the code was the same and the compilers were similar for the MACs back then they would be less vunerable to some buffer overrun exploits.0 -
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I wonder if you have even seen the Xerox GUI system in real life.smeggle wrote:DOS was vastily different to when the first GUI's were first coming out. Earlier versions of windows/or Apple needed a basic DOS service to operate properly. Rank organization were the first to crack the basis on which most modern days Operating Systems are based.
Must be a different version to the one I have on video tape here. Microsoft paid 50K for DOS. Much of Apple's innovation was due to the fact that the GUI aspect was so heavily dependent on the hardware. Microsoft was working with a severe disadvantage due to the more utilitarian IBM video design.If you watch a film called 'Pirates of Silicon Valley', it clearly shows it was Apple who paid the 50k out for the first major GUI. (Graphical User Interface).
Are you really sure that you were around back then and not in junior infants or something?Thats how I remember what happened anyway. Some of the stuff in that movie was heavily skewed.
Regards...jmcc0 -
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